Their health plan, Anthem Blue Cross, sent them a letter last month telling them that their insurance coverage has been canceled retroactively, back to the first day of the year -- and that they may be responsible for paying bills for medical care during that time.

The care was for Rhonda Xanttopulos, who was hospitalized in February.

Xanttopulos said she knew by then that she had anemia, but was surprised at how severe her symptoms became.

“I was so physically dizzy -- not vertigo -- but so dizzy that I wouldn’t even drive a car,” Xanttopulos said.

On Feb. 1, Xanttopulos wound up at a local hospital, where she stayed for three nights. Hospital staff took her Anthem Blue Cross card, and she and her husband were told they’d be charged a deductible of more than $6,500, along with an additional charge of $2,500 for an out-of-network doctor there.

The couple has been paying the charges in installments.

A bigger worry of theirs is that they’ll get a bill for more than $70,000 because Anthem Blue Cross has retroactively canceled their coverage without explanation.

“We called Anthem Blue Cross, and they said, ‘Well, we can cancel people whenever we want. We can do whatever we want,’” Xanttopulos said.

The company even sent the couple a check, refunding more than $480 for premiums they had paid in January and February.

A spokesman for Anthem Blue Cross told KCRA 3 that there was a “hiccup” in data transmission between his company and Covered California, the state’s health benefits exchange, and that it affected customers “in isolated cases.”

The spokesman said the company will try to resolve the matter for Xanttopulos.

A spokesman for Covered California did not answer questions from KCRA 3 Wednesday, but said the agency was looking into the matter.

Xanttopulos said even the cost of the deductible is hard to swallow because it was avoidable. She tried early in the year to see a doctor instead of a hospital, but her regular doctor was not accepting Anthem Blue Cross.

For many consumers, there was confusion at the beginning of the year over which doctors would accept plans offered through Covered California. The exchange revised those lists several times.